26 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 



name, on April 26th, 1578, and March pth, 1580,* contains 

 dispositions against the stealing or destroying of nets, &c., 

 which prove the fishermen, three centuries and a half ago, to 

 have been similarly addicted, in the way of petty piracy, as 

 they appear to have been until the late International Conven- 

 tion. Besides penalties against such piracy, sailing orders 

 to hoist certain signals by day and night while the nets are 

 overboard, and to straighten the helm for fear of getting 

 caught in them, and regulations as to the treatment of fishing 

 gear lost at sea, are found in these statutes. Whoever finds 

 a " fleet," or set of nets, afloat and unowned, and hauls it 

 aboard, is enjoined to carry aloft as many empty herring 

 baskets as there are brails on the nets found ; and with 

 these baskets in his rigging, as a sign that he has another 

 man's nets on board, the finder is obliged to sail till their 

 owner has claimed them, in default of which he is to 

 hand them over to the nearest magistrate on coming into 

 port. It is easier to issue laws of this nature than to 

 enforce them ; and the several renovations of the placards 

 in question make it very probable that Dutch fishermen 

 were in the course of the sixteenth century by no means 

 averse to make free with the property of friend and foe 

 when occasion offered, or destroy it if coming across their 

 own. It would indeed appear that fishermen, who live by 

 appropriating the unowned and masterless treasures of the 

 sea, are easily brought to stretch the principle a point or 

 two, and appropriate objects which have distinct masters 



* Groot Placaetboek, i. pp. 684-91. The placards of 1546, 1564 and 

 1578 have been registered by the Court of Holland, and are to be 

 found in their memorial books (ist van Dam, fol. 198 ; 3rd Ernst, fol. 

 173 ; 7th Ibid. fol. 236). It appears from the exordium of the placard 

 of 1 580 that both this and that of 1564 were renovations of another 

 dated August 4th, 1545. 



